The dancing-girls of India may be divided into three classes: the Nautchnees, who are actresses, or ballet-girls, or both; the Bayahdiers, or Bhayadhyas, dedicated by their parents in childhood as votive offerings to certain temples, and consecrated to them at the age of womanhood; and the common "Cusban," a grade even lower than either of these, whose ranks are chiefly supplied from the abandoned Mohammedan women, the Purwarees, the lowest of all castes in Central India, as well as from the disaffected runaways of either of the two former and more reputable professions. The Cusban, therefore, is the scum and refuse of the lowest-caste females in India. One day, accompanied by Kesinèh, I visited a Nautchnee establishment of which the beautiful dancing-girl who so much attracted me was an inmate. It was kept by a native man and his wife, named respectively Dhanut and Saineh Bebee. We drove to it in a Hindoo carriage, a round seat for two or more persons placed on wheels, drawn by a pair of milk-white bullocks, and covered with a curious conical structure of wickerwork hung with crimson silk curtains. We took our places on two cushions cross-legged; the driver sat in front, and with a sharp crack of the whip started the bullocks at a brisk trot and sent us bumping up and down. On our way we caught glimpses of a population even more strange than those to be met daily in the parts of the island more frequented by Europeans. The dirtiness of a low-caste, poverty-stricken Oriental street is inconceivable. Filth reigned supreme in some of the lanes and alleys through which we passed. A rank vegetation clothed everything; trees hung with many-colored festoons of leaves and flowers formed thick tapestries of foliage on the right and on the left. There is no country in the world (save the beautiful island of Ceylon) that is kinder to the sluggard. The poorest soil will grow certain qualities of fruit and cocoanut palms. The native population in some parts here seemed almost too indolent to move out of the way of our carriage-wheels, but they were peaceful enough. Stones, old broken bits of earthenware, wheels, broken litters, impeded the way, and cows, dogs, hens, chickens, pigs, ducks, and children less clad than any of these, roamed idly about in the streets and gutters or narrow lanes. As a rule, no refuse or rubbish of any kind whatever is removed, but is left to accident and the action of natural chemistry. Burnt-down huts covered over with the ever-ready parasitic plants, old wells and tanks filled with stagnant water abounding in frogs, water-snakes, and all kinds of reptiles, add to the sluggish appearance of the place. Gayly-dressed native women, idle men--among whom may be seen some poor depraved British tars--and male and female hucksters of fruit and sweetmeats, complete the picture.